


A Lightning Strike and a Second Ripple

by Night-Mare (Aoife)



Series: Ripples [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Merone Base Raid, POV Spanner (Reborn), Ten Years Later Arc (Reborn), Unreliable Narrator(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 03:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12160389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Night-Mare
Summary: Things were alwayssupposedto change as a result of them being dragged forward into the future. Not all of the changes went as planned.Spanner talks to Tsuna.





	A Lightning Strike and a Second Ripple

The Vongola is not _quite_ what he'd been expecting. His Sky was so open, so attractive to him that he couldn't help but help the kid. He'd thought that the Vongola had a complete 'set' but with the way that the kid’s Flames whispers to him, he doesn't. His Flames have always been sleepy, slow to rise, almost entirely used internally, but coming to face with the Vongola leaves them crackling beneath his skin, craving, and he understood Shoichi better now. Why even as Byakuran got crazier and crazier his best friend still followed his Sky.

"And what are you doing sneaking around Merone base, Vongola?" He unwraps another lollipop and pops in it in his mouth, runs through the exercises that Shoichi had shared with him when he'd gone Flame Active, the ones he used to make his Flames look appropriate for a ‘B’ rank officer, so that people would leave him to his moscas. He couldn’t hide them completely, as there had been witnesses to him going Active, but they made him appear weak _enough_ that he was more valuable in his current role than out fighting 'live'. He sucked the lollipop thoughtfully, waited for an answer, contemplated the way the Vongola had fought; there'd be an insane amount of power there, but obviously not completely under the Sky's control - he'd have called him a kid, but he'd fished him out of the water, stripped him off as he was soaked, and that wasn't a kid's body, and judging by the scratch marks, he wasn't the only one who knew that - and he could feel those Flames even now. Was tempted by them, tempted by the Vongola, and the things Shoichi had said the last time they'd manage to talk to the Cervello made _sense_ , and he gave in.

"Um." The Vongola hesitated, and he resisted the temptation to grin, "trying to figure out why I'm here, not ten years in the past?" He blinked, did some calculations, and turned to his computer, pulling up the file on the Vongola, and the Bovino - annihilated, and the files and their Bazooka in the Millefiore’s hands - and trying to put the pieces together. He'd seen the Bazooka fired. Knew how it worked - had been one of the people that Shoichi had turned to help him make sense of the insane weapon, though he’d never had it fired at him. And that made no sense; the Vongola had been here for more than five minutes, and the power required for that was _impossible_ ; the energy requirements grew exponentially.

"Vongola, when did you 'lose' your Lightning?" He's genuinely curious; the teen's Sky Flames are curling around his, begging like a puppy for his to come out and play, and he’s having to throw every trick Shoichi’s shown him at them to stop them doing something stupid.

"What?! Lambo's _safe_. He's back -" The Vongola slaps a hand across his mouth almost theatrically. He crunches his lollipop and the mini Mosca brings him several more. He plucks a strawberry one out of his little robot’s grasp, and unwraps it; his favourite flavour.

"M'sure he is. Lollipop?" He considered some of the things that Shoichi had babbled at him before all of this, when he was just experimenting with the Moscas because he was bored, and Shoichi was learning about Flames from a younger, almost sane Byakuran. The young Sky took the lollipop, and he wanted to lecture the teen on the danger of taking candy from strange men; if he had fewer ethics, it could have been laced with _anything_ , and the kid had a very cute butt, and some very interesting scratches. "Mhmm. Shut your eyes and 'feel' for your Flames, Vongola. I'm going to work on something that'll help with that attack you were trying to use."

The Vongola is quiet for long enough that he can mock up the idea he'd had while he was using the Moscas to fight the teen; a set of contact lenses and a headset to allow the Vongola to balance his attack better. He's just setting his manufacturing Moscas to fabricate a prototype while he finishes hacking together the simple software to run them, when the Vongola's Flames _flare_ , and the teen's eyes open abruptly. "How did you ...?"

He taps a last command into the program and spins back around. "Your Flames are begging mine to come out and play, Vongola. If you had a bonded Lightning, they wouldn't be doing that, according to the training I was given. How many bonds do you have?" He's genuinely curious, but still spins back again to check the compiling program, and reels his Flames back in yet again. He needs to figure out why his insane best friend has been playing with the Ten Year Bazooka; allowing his Flames to bond to the welcoming young Sky he’d ‘captured’ would be a phenomenally bad idea without knowing what, exactly, Shoichi’s plan was and given the flags on the files, there was definitely a plan. It was just a question of whether it was a sanctioned one or not.

"Three and two ‘partial’ ones?" The teen sounds confused. He taps the keys of the keyboard in front of him, and corrects three errors in his coding and runs through them another simulation - only to find two more errors. "I can _feel_ Hayato and Takeshi, and Chrome, and Hibari-san and Ryohei-senpai are sort of fuzzily there, but Lambo -"

"Try this on, and tell me whether you can see through them properly." He tossed the contact lenses that the Mosca handed him. "Mhmm, from what Shoichi learnt from Byakuran, Vongola, it takes time for most bonds to form. Whatever Shoichi's trying to do, you've been pulled forward before you bonded to them all properly; given that Byakuran wants the Tri-ne-sette and your older self -" he trailed off, not sure whether to tell the young version of the Vongola that his older self had destroyed the Rings to try and deny Shoichi's insane Sky the ability to complete the set, only to find he'd made it impossible to go toe-to-toe with the albino Sky.

The teen version of the Vongola fumbled but got the contact lenses in, and blinked his eyes adorably. "I can see two gauges?"

"There's supposed to be." The mini mosca brought him the other piece that had been manufacturing. "Put these on and I'll turn the training mode on so you can try them out. You were having a problem balancing that attack of yours, and this _should_ help." He dragged his Lightning back under his skin again before it could curl around the Vongola's. The young version might still have a slot for a Lightning, but the older one _hadn't_ and he was no match for Gamma; the bearer of the Lightning Mare Ring would kick his ass. He hadn’t managed to acquire a _box_ weapon that actually fitted him, didn’t like fighting in person; it would be suicidal to side with the Vongola, but that didn't seem to matter to his Flames.

But then things that Shoichi had whispered to him, about the _old_ ways of using the Flames, slid into place. It wouldn't matter to them that it was suicidal; perhaps that made the Sky even more attractive, the urge to use his Flames as if he was dying - crueller, harsher than the way the Millefiore Activated their soldiers now; rings and fear being enough - to let loose the potential he was suppressing. He must have given himself away somehow; the Vongola's eyes shift to Sky Orange, sharp, insightful in a way that's inhuman, and focus on him despite the lens and a small part of his brain hopes that the material he used to manufacture them is indeed Flame Resistant enough to survive - crippling this Sky would be a crime.

"How do I ...?" The Sky Flames are almost chokingly thick in the room; he doesn't think it's deliberate - not with the way the Vongola is flexing his fingers, testing the equipment. It’s possible he doesn’t even recognise he’s doing it.

"Sit in the chair -" He gestured at the virtual reality chair in the corner of the lab; he was still finishing up the programming for it, but it would suffice. "- and when I finish the count to ten, you'll be in a virtual training mode. But it's as simple as matching the gauges, and having the Will." And the Vongola's Will was like fine forged _steel_.


End file.
